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Friday, February 28, 2014

This iconic Australian highland almost dead center in the antipodean continent is the focus of the second to the last chapter of A Modern Myth: A Metaphor where Yesterday and Tomorrow Collide. Although the photo appears to be taken at sunrise, the scene has been captured at the beginning of sunset, taken after a day of discovery. We might all gain a healthy perspective of our place in the world if we were to visit the red rock country of the land time forgot (forgive the cliche, but those words were written to describe this very spot).

Monday, February 24, 2014

This article from Salon worries me. For the past couple of years I have been a frequent Amazon customer. I also am one of those folks who votes with my wallet. That is to say, my purchasing habits are a statement of my politics.

I will do further research on the allegations from the article featured here. If I find that they are accurate, I will terminate my dealings with Amazon just as I have terminated my relationship with Walmart.

I hope you will take ten minutes to read this article from Salon. And I invite you to comment here on your response to the allegations about one of the two biggest 'store fronts' on the planet.

Oh, and one more thing. If you agree with my concerns, I do hope you will share this article with your online family and friends.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Susie Nott-Bower has created two complex, intriguing, fifty year old female protagonists who play out their roles as opposites, but who move closer and closer together as the story develops. I love their resilience, their intellect, and their vulnerability. The best lines in this novel are left to the women.

I was surprised at the breadth of Nott-Bower's supporting characters, males who actually held their own as full bodied versions of male pulchritude. Here were the vulnerable and the needy as well as the strong and the independent.

The plot line is NOT what I expected as I began reading. Indeed, the story is well told and many layered, feminist without being preachy, altogether a good read, one which kept me engrossed to the very last line.

Friday, February 21, 2014

These two quotes seem important in terms of the choices my partner and I made today. We live in a small town in a wildcat region of oil extraction and industrial development in the central north of the USA.

Since folks first homesteaded this area, it has been a farming region with a small population who have been dependent in a most positive way on the community these mostly immigrants to the United States were able to create. There is a strong sense of comaraderie amongst those who live here. However, as the nation changed and the farms themselves became industrialized in terms of the ability of one machine to do the work of every so many laborers, the population has shrunk as young folks moved to other places were work was available.

When we arrived, we were citizens # 56 and 57 in this small village called a city in North Dakota. Today, five years later, we are # 124 and 125. Not a huge growth over this period of time, but change is often difficult. My partner is the man who maintains the ailing infrastructure of the village. He is intent on bringing the water and sewer systems into the 21st century, not an easy task. He is assisted in making the necessary changes because of surplus oil revenues. The money is here. All that is needed is the intention, the determination, and the expertise to use it properly. Success depends on not only his skill as a engineer, but also on his success as a social change agent.

I, on the other hand, am a retired English teacher. My contribution includes putting words to paper. This is a region where folks have mistrusted what has been written down. Many are hesitant to draw up plans or print guarantees in black and white. However, since we have arrived a zoning and planning ordinance has been constructed in order to give an outline to future development. We've all seen cities that grew too fast without a pro-active plan for that growth. Our little town is currently protected to some extent from such willy/nilly change. It has been a communal process built on the already existing sense of trust in the community itself.

Today, we made a purchase of an empty house on main street in order to assure that a new family and not a man-camp will be located in the center of our city. We don't need another house. We don't need another responsibility. We do need a family, however, with children and pets, laughter, and energy. We tried to model what we hope others will contribute to this lovely prairie village.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Oil
is rarely in pretty places. It is under the ground in the kinds of charmless
places no one would visit if there wasn’t some valuable natural resource to
extract. And yet at some point, westward-bound pioneers came through here and
thought, Yeah. Flat. Cold. Dry. Dusty. This is the place to settle. It’s
more likely, maybe, that they thought, No one will bother me here. Or
even, maybe, I deserve this. You can see how no one would give a fuck
about letting Halliburton, Nabors, Exxon, and Chevron tear up acres of prairie.
Not once did I ever hear a Williston resident or worker mention anything about
the dangers of fracking, which is not to say that there haven’t been concerns.
With great understatement, a Reuters
article about the groundbreaking for a refinery said, “The state has one of
the lowest population densities in the United States and has little of the
political, environmental or community opposition that’s helped scuttle all
other refinery projects since Jimmy Carter was president.”

* * *

The
oil leaves North Dakota and so does the money. It’s funny to think about what a
minuscule, tiny, insignificant fraction I’ve made out there, even though it
amounted to a respectable year’s worth over a total of 16 work weeks. So little
of the wealth that is being generated is going to stay there. The corporations
making the real money in the Bakken aren’t based in North Dakota. Their
executives are in no hurry to relocate there either. They can leave and still
have jobs, though, unlike the oil field workers.

Saturday, February 01, 2014

Now, I'm not so certain that ole Calvin is to be trusted. He was a politician, ya know, and today these are the Americans the rest of us trust least. However, the sentiment is one to which I subscribe. It's good to have a famous name (or an infamous one) parrot what one already thinks. :)